God’s Warriors

The three part CNN special “God’s Warriors” is scheduled to air this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The series will cover fundamentalist extremists of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity in that order.

I’ve reviewed the previews on the CNN web site and the CNN reporter, Christiane Amanpour, appears to be sounding a warning, although she would probably deny it. She claims the series is about understanding and that is certainly a darn good starting point.

I’ll admit I don’t know much about Jewish or Muslim fundamentalists but I know a fair amount about the Christian variety. Amanpour says that we can’t afford to look upon these people as some sort of “exotic subspecies” out on the “loony fringe” and she’s absolutely correct.

I used to look upon Fundamentalist Christians as silly but harmless. Then I really got to understand a little about them. They’re anything but harmless. They’re dangerous as hell and downright scary. They are the single biggest threat to American Democracy that has ever existed. I’m much more concerned about them then I am about Muslim Terrorists.

Muslim Terrorists just want to kill me. Fundamentalist Christians want to enslave me by rolling back everything the enlightenment has accomplished and re-instituting a dark age of medieval superstition and mental stagnation. I consider the latter a much greater threat than the former because, if we’re not careful, it can happen in a series of seemingly harmless steps.

Consider one of the primary topics in the Christianity segment which is the BattleCry group. On the surface BattleCry is a darn good idea. It’s opposed to teenage sex, violence and drugs. Who could argue with that? Unfortunately the movement goes way beyond those simply positions. They’re not happy with merely having their members lay off sex, violence and drugs, everyone has to also sign up to God, Jesus and the Bible. Not any God, Jesus and the Bible mind you, but their very narrow interpretation of God, Jesus and the Bible.

I could even live with that, but tied up in it all is also trying to get everyone else to share that viewpoint. At the moment it’s through persuasion, but should they get enough clout, it will quickly become coercion because they, and only they, possess the truth and the rest of us should accept that truth for our own good or else. Don’t believe me? Check out The Inquisition. Saving souls was the official reason given for the torture and killing.

This follows not too long after the HBO special “Friends of God” which sounded a similar warning note. There is a lot to be concerned about here. However I’m afraid that unless Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton gets involved most of the population is going to miss the warning.

I don’t know if there’s a God but, if there is, he must be pulling his hair out over the so-called faithful. This assumes of course that he has hair and isn’t laughing too hard at the unmitigated gall of the human species.